ETD Collection

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Subject: search.filters.subject.Teacher education

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Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    Student engagement in teacher education at the Kigali Institute of Education in Rwanda.
    (2013-10-07) Nizeyimana, Gabriel
    Qualitatively and quantitatively, this thesis investigates student engagement and success in post-secondary teacher education. The research is a case study conducted in Rwanda using the Classroom Survey of Student Engagement (CLASSE), interviews, and document analysis techniques. It aims at comparing two groups of teacher education students in terms of how different factors of student engagement affect their performance. The study provides a sound contribution in understanding how students with a professional background effectively engage and succeed in modules/courses of the teacher education programme that are shared with students without such background. The study claims that student teachers’ beliefs brought to teacher education play a vital role in determining the level of student engagement and performance in both professional and non-professional courses rather than their academic background. Findings indicate that these courses were taught and learnt in inappropriate teaching and learning environments. Despite unfavourable conditions, results also indicate that students with professional preparation prior to the post-secondary teacher education programme have positive beliefs about the career, interact with lecturers and peers more frequently, devote much time and effort on educationally purposeful activities, and participate more frequently in engaging activities than students who have just started teacher training. In addition, the study indicates that these factors of student engagement influence performance. The study also reveals that the former have developed their professional teacher identity which facilitates their social and academic integration and their intrinsic motivation to learning for the career while the latter are struggling learning for the profession in which they are not motivated and interested. Therefore, students with teacher identity perform significantly better than those who are new in teacher training even in non-professional courses in which they have fewer prerequisites.
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    Preparing pre-service mathematics teachers to teach in multilingual classrooms : a community of practice perspective.
    (2013-10-01) Essien, Anthony Anietie
    This study takes a particular look at mathematics teacher education communities of practice (CoPs) in order to provide rich descriptions of the CoPs and make claims about its relation/in relation to teacher preparation and particularly the preparation of preservice teachers for teaching mathematics in multilingual classrooms. The three dimensions of communities of practice proposed by Wenger (mutual engagement, shared repertoire and joint enterprise) were used in conjunction with Mortimer and Scott’s notion of meaning making as a dialogic process as a theoretical lens to gain an entry into the nature of communities of practice in pre-service mathematics teacher education classrooms. Data was collected through pre-observation interviews of 12 teacher educators at four Universities in one Province in South Africa in Phase One of the study. A methodological approach based on Wenger’s CoP theory and Mortimer and Scott’s dialogic process was developed and used to analyse classroom observation videos of four of these teacher educators’ classroom communities of practice in two universities in Phase Two of the study. Using the privileged practices in the CoPs as points of departure and how these practices shaped and were shaped by other dynamics in the CoPs, the findings emerging from the study indicate that within the multiply layers of teacher education, there is an overarching emphasis given to the acquisition of mathematical content. Nevertheless, the communicative approaches and patterns of discourse used by the different teacher educators opened up different possibilities as far as preparing preservice teachers for teaching (in multilingual classrooms) is concerned. Wenger’s community of practice theory has found applications in different spheres of life and in different organisational and educational settings. Its use to understand and describe mathematics pre-service classrooms is, however, still largely unexplored. A theoretical contribution that this study makes lies in the extension of Wenger’s CoP theory to include dialogic processes. A methodological contribution lies in the development of an organisational language (based on Wenger’s three dimensions of CoP) to characterise pre-service teacher education classrooms.
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    Exploring teacher/student knowledge and conceptions of knowledge through enquiry-based research in visual art studies.
    (2013-01-10) Giorza, Theresa Magdalen
    This qualitative study explores how knowledge and concepts of knowledge are experienced in an undergraduate teacher education course that employs a community of enquiry pedagogy. As designer and facilitator of the course I engaged students in enquiries and enquiry-based activities to learn about art. Using an action-research approach I made changes to the course design in response to how it played out. The art of the Constitutional Court of South Africa was the focus of our study and students developed structured and logical ‘frameworks’ for analysing artworks as well as playing with laterally extending concepts such as art, justice, equality and humanity. The findings suggest that the dialogical and embodied practice of a community of enquiry pedagogy strongly influenced my students’ and my own awareness of knowledge as a creative and experiential opening up and as a companion to the equally valuable experience of not knowing. Teaching within this epistemological framework demands democratic and reflexive pedagogies such as the community of enquiry.
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    A study of the distance teacher education programme (DTEP) offered by the Lesotho College of Education in Maseru Lesotho.
    (2012-03-13) Chaka, Claurinah Malemohang
    The study set out to assess the quality of the DTEP offered by the LCE by examining its strengths and limitations regarding student teachers‟ home and academic background, mode of delivery, entry requirements, course materials, content and pedagogic approach. This was done through analysis of some course documents and materials, interviewing course designers, tutors as well as final year student teachers. DTEP appears to be doing well in some areas and not so well in others. To start with, the programme came as the main answer to qualifying the teachers that were employed as un/under qualified at the pressing demands of UPE and FPE in the early 2000s. DTEP goes beyond teaching primary school content and methodology, onto teaching content aimed at opening doors for further study and thus other careers for its clientele. But there‟s still dire need to convince student teachers that this is good practice and for their benefit and not an unnecessary burden, as they perceive it to be. DTEP also appears to be succeeding in not just changing the negative attitudes and/or perceptions that most of its clientele tend to have at entry point, but also in them actually changing from wrong practices as well. However, the programme is characterized with some serious administrative challenges such as lack of transport which results in late delivery of study materials and irregular school visits. Also the DTEP entry qualifications are very low and yet there‟s no form of bridging course put in place to compensate for this. It as well seems that, though they are the only means of course communication, the DTEP course materials tend to be well written, interactive and thus of a good quality. The revisions of such materials, started late 2009, was completed early 2010. DTEP tutors as well stress to their students the importance of learner centred methods of teaching even though they are not able to demonstrate their use to them most of the time.
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    Mediating knowledge and constituting subjectivities in distance education materials for language teachers in South Africa.
    (2010-08-31) Reed, Yvonne
    International and local guidelines for designing distance education materials advise designers to use feedback from students in the redesign of their materials. This study is a response to the researcher’s failed attempt to elicit critical feedback from some of her students. It therefore sets out to devise a framework for a critical pedagogic analysis of distance learning materials designed for South African teacher education programmes. It draws on theorisations of pedagogy, principally from the work of the sociologist of education Basil Bernstein and the applied linguist Suresh Canagarajah, theorisations of mediation, originating in the work of Lev Vygotsky, and theorisations of subjectivity. It also draws on international and local conceptualisations of a knowledge base for teacher education. In the analysis of the selection and organisation of knowledge on the page, the study draws on Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics and the field of social semiotics to uncover the positions constructed for readers as students and as teachers in each multimodal design. A pedagogic analysis of distance education materials for pre-service or in-service teachers responds to a series of questions: What elements of a knowledge base for teacher education do designers foreground and background? What is the orientation of the materials to the relationship between knowledge and practice? How is knowledge mediated through in-text activities, pedagogic episodes and scaffolded readings? What roles do linguistic and visual design choices play in the mediation of knowledge? A critical pedagogic analysis interrogates the subject positions that the multimodal designs constitute for ideal readers as students and as teachers. In the study, all of these questions frame a detailed analysis of three sets of materials designed for South African teacher education programmes and, finally, a critical reflection on materials for which the researcher was the principal designer. The study concludes that a critical pedagogic analysis affords designers and evaluators the critical distance needed for evaluating the mediation of knowledge(s) and the constitution of readers’ subjectivities in teacher education materials. As an alternative (or in some circumstances, as an addition) to reader feedback it has the potential to inform redesigning for the original local context(s) of use or reversioning for use in broader regional or global contexts.
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    Deaf teachers' experience of being students at the University of the Witwatersrand.
    (2009-01-08T05:59:38Z) Magongwa, Lucas
    Due to the specialist nature of their use of a visual language, Deaf and hard of hearing students have unique experiences at institutions of higher education. This research explored the experiences of Deaf teachers as students at Wits University. I employed a qualitative research design in the study. In -depth interviews and documentary information were used to collect data from twelve current and past Deaf and hard of hearing students. Current theory, practice and legislation designed to guide the creation of an inclusive education society were examined in order to explore the implications they have for Deaf students in terms of inclusion and access to education. The findings showed high level of academic competitiveness among the Deaf and hard of hearing students but low social participation. Their academic success was driven by factors such as commitment to Deaf education, the availability of interpreting services, having Deaf peers and their pre-university experiences.